The AUSubaru.com.au Forums

well doing my early morning xmas browse i found this ..


I think I may get a can of the upper engine cleaner ..

I recon my donk has never been done.

Anyone here ever used it ?


Q. I have noticed that Subaru Upper Engine Cleaner and Fuel Additive have been used in my last two Subaru services. Could you please explain the benefits of these products?

A. The burning of fuel in a vehicle’s cylinders creates engine power output. As petrol is a hydrocarbon fuel, made up of hydrogen and carbon, after combustion it leaves carbon as a by-product or deposit. Over a relatively short period of time the carbon is deposited on the walls of the combustion chamber, the piston crown (top surface) and the valves, which can result in the deterioration of engine efficiency. This may lead to poor fuel economy, reduced power and harder starting.

To overcome this situation, the factory has formulated ‘Upper Engine Cleaner (SA459)’, which is a concentrated combustion chamber and induction system cleaner. This product helps clean and purge gum, varnish and carbon deposits. Using this solvent during scheduled servicing has proven to be a valuable form of preventative maintenance.

If your vehicle was subjected to regular stop/start driving, short trips or poor fuel quality, the build-up of gum, varnish and carbon deposits would be far more rapid. In addition to ‘Upper Engine Cleaner (SA459)’, we suggest the use of ‘SA718 Fuel Additive’ to maximise your engine’s protection. Both products have been specially formulated by Fuji Heavy Industries, the manufacturer of your Subaru vehicle, to be compatible with the Subaru horizontally opposed Boxer engine and its technically advanced electronics. These products are available through all authorised Subaru Dealers.


Also after doing some web research it seems that subaru makes the best stuff ...

Have used it for over 10 years, on all sorts of cars, great stuff.
If changing spark plugs at the same service, do the upper engine clean first.
Your plugs will thank you for it.

I bought some throttle body cleaner from Supercheap once and it was just acetone in a pressure pack! I wonder what Subaru use in theirs?

If you are really concerned about keeping the chambers/valve faces/piston crowns clean the a reasonably simple way is some form of water injection .
Water is great for removing carbon and if you can do it properly the innards stay vuirtually spotless . Water is a great anti detonant and had been used over the years to allow greater on load ignition advance without detonation .

You have to be VERY wary that you don't inject too much water because its not compressible and will hydraulic the cylinders if it goes badly wrong .

Also as a heads up lots of long in the tooth engines carbon up trying to burn oil thats got past the piston rings or down the inlet valve guides . If it is carboning up due to fuel then its running too rich for its own good .

With the lube system leaving the oil in too long is what gives that bronzy varnished type look . Frequent oil changes like every 5000 Km max is good because the only way to get post combustion products out of an engine is to drain them out with the oil . The best oil on the planet WILL dergrade because of what it absorbs and the only way out is out the drain hole . Don't believe all the BS that manufacturers spin these days if you like your engine , 10-15000Km oil changes are a beancounters decision not an engineers one .
Good oil won't make a worn engine new again but it will keep a good engine in good condition longer .

Cheers A .

Good to see somebody else likes water injection for it's carbon cleaning properties.

Throttlebody cleaner is just that, it doesn't clean the combustion chamber, the intake ports and the back of the intake valves like Subaru upper engine cleaner.

a good old steam clean...YEAH

personally have used mlm crowd Proma fuel treatment. the best was when NRMA patrolman got a volvo going and told owner to go get filters replaced including intank filter. we double dosed this thing up and then some,as a temporary measure, against advice owner did an urgent trailer run 600km round trip, came back raving about the stuff and bought a bottle that treats 800 litres or so , we ordered genuine filters - and still have them 15 years later - he never came back!


Gonna dig out my Julian Edgar designs for water fogging device

steptoe wrote:Gonna dig out my Julian Edgar designs for water fogging device

Seem to remeber Julian had a RS sedan years ago (10+??) whilst in adelaide...remember a photo shoot in the hills near Chain Of Ponds. the RS was running (i think) H2O / menthonal injection in the intake - cannot remember the exact details of the article, but if you stumble accross it wouldn't mind a read.

sven

hi guys i hope santa was good to yus.
my dad use to run water injection on a few of his cars. i remember 1 he sold an f100 with 150,000 on it .in the sale deal ford orange swaped inlet manifolds and heads .the spaner man asked how long ago it was rebuilt. and was astounded when he was told never nad it ran water injection.
i used water whenever i had a car that had pree ignitionm or ran on after it was turned off.just remove tha air cleaner keep up the revs and drible water in the carby 1or 2 lts was all it would miss n fart but decoked the combustion chamber and stoped the problem. (never did tell my customers my secret"
i bought a tin of that subi stuff in the forester mrs dibs reconed it went better . so it must be good for her to pick hp gain.
thats my input any ways
have a subi xmas and a boxer new year

yer ive ran some thru my Ej22 after it went into ma wagon...but seriously i dont expect to 'feel' any gains from it.

i rekon the almighty placebo effect wants u to beleive it goes better.

the test wuld be to put it into someones car without them knowing and be curious to see if they suddenyl comment..."jeez ma car seems to run alot better today".

ive got more cans to try aswell. on other cars. any1 know how much a can costs normally? i scored mine for free a whole 3 cans of the stuff

dibs wrote:i bought a tin of that subi stuff in the forester mrs dibs reconed it went better.

My missus always comments on how much smoother the Forester is after a service and they hit it up with the UCC and she is no petrol head by a long shot.

littlewhiteute wrote:...Throttlebody cleaner is just that, it doesn't clean the combustion chamber, the intake ports and the back of the intake valves like Subaru upper engine cleaner...

I can't see why throttle body cleaner couldn't be used to do the same, job as the upper engine cleaner. You'd just follow the other instructions for the latter. Perhaps the upper engine cleaner is a better over cleaner though as I guess the muck is baked on better in the motor than in the throttle body.

I have used Subaru UEC every 10,000km in all my Subarus. The petrol additive I have only used once in my Impreza. I was told by a good mechanic once that most of the fuel additives are a waste of money as they are so diluted as to do bugger-all anyway. The detergents in fuel probably do a better job. The stuff they run through when they clean injectors in the workshop is a LOT stronger.

Maybe I'll rephrase, and say that throttlebody cleaner does have some effect, but not to the level of Subaru upper engine cleaner.

Then again neither is akin to a properly metered water injection device.
Any engine will benefit from water injection.

If you can run E10 fuel in your car a few tanks of that does wonders for cleaning things out.